


our space is dark and silent

by constellations (allyoop)



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: Mirror Universe
Genre: Academy Era, Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Blood, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Injury, Kissing, M/M, Mirror Universe, Serious Injuries, Sexual Tension, Starfleet Academy, Temporary Character Death, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-11 07:32:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allyoop/pseuds/constellations
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Space is disease and danger wrapped in DARKNESS and SILENCE"</p><p>when Bones took the inevitable fall, it was a tumble down the very stairs of hell</p><p>((it's sort of an implied mirrorverse. it is kind of dark and tw: blood))<br/>((also someone half-way dies. I promise it's not nearly as bad as it seems))</p>
            </blockquote>





	our space is dark and silent

There must have been an instinct coded under his skin; and instinct that told him to go on despite every common sense that was screaming for him to stop. And when he took the inevitable fall, it was a tumble down the very stairs of hell; sharp and jagged, only to land in a more dangerous place than he began. Like his grandma always used to say, he leapt out of the fryin’ pan and into the fire. 

*

Bones got out of his bad times in Georgia, the earth still shaky at his feet, to join up with Starfleet where they would ignore his constant flask of bourbon as long as his hands kept doing good work and his mouth stayed shut. He was a doctor but he sure as hell wasn’t always doing  _doctoring,_ not in the usual sense of the word. Bones stuffed his ears and locked his mind, not letting even idle curiosity lead to him to facts he didn’t want to know.

Then he went into space, the deep dark despair, where his broken earth wouldn’t follow, and only cold metal stood below. 

And Jim- oh,  _Jim_ \- was a miscalculation and the first push that sent him flying. He was gorgeous that day on the shuttle, blood still tricking and making his white smile seem all the brighter. They shared a drink, and a weighted look, and Bones was honestly surprised they didn’t share a bed that night. Or the next.

Bones kept an eye on him; it was impossible not to since Jim seemed to flit purposefully in and out of his life. He was magnetic to watch. His movements fluid but restrained; a strength beneath the surface that promised a fight he was sure to win. Bones felt the more he stared, the more Jim blurred and broke at the edges, like a centuries-old photograph so carefully pieced together but never fully restored. Sometimes Jim’s eyes would catch his, and Bones felt the cold blue cut into his soul, his mind open and easily read. And Jim in return was a bleak, stark wall; letting nothing cross his face but a smile Bones was now realised was fake. With each day in Starfleet he felt the growing urge to tie Jim down unwind him slowly, to make him come with those secrets a cry on his lips. 

But Bones knew a man like Jim would never be caught willingly. But Bones had never been the type to  _let it go_. He was stubborn to his core; stubborn to the death.

And so here he was, the first mission as the crew of the Enterprise was utterly failing. Their information had been lethally and most likely, intentionally incorrect; the planet was hostile beyond anything Bones had ever imagined and three crewmen had already fallen behind him as they ran. Jim was ahead, at a sprinter’s pace, and Bones was trying desperately to catch up. But he couldn’t. He turned his head, in a brief but terrible decision, to see what was still chasing them. His foot slipped, the ground underneath as malicious as the inhabitants, and he fell through broken earth and down craggy stone, the crunch of his bones loud as the howling aboveground faded away. He landed on sharp white flagstones, eyes barely open, his blood running bright rivers against the pale rocks. Bones wanted to move, against all medical instincts, he wanted to take one last turn and fall on the blueish-green below. He didn’t want to die on a rock; he wanted to die on green and brown, on the earth he ran from and spent so long forgetting. Bones clung to one truth; he was dying, but Jim was long gone. The Captain lived. The CMO can be replaced. 

"Bones!"  _No._  “Bones, can you hear me?”  _No, Jim. Run, please run._  His words turned into a cough and it was answer enough for Jim. “If you can hear me Bones, answer me. Reach through the pain, ignore the urge to leave, and  _answer me_.” 

Jim’s hands were on his shoulders, agonizing and unrelentlessly trying to wake him enough to speak. Bones wanted to warn him, to recite the reasons to not move an injured person, but he knew that Jim had been trained as well. Jim knew and he was shaking him anyways.

"Tell me, Bones," Jim’s fingers dug sharply. "Do you want to live? I don’t care what Starfleet regs say, so don’t regurgitate the rules you disagree with. I  _know_  you Bones. I’ve watched you just as you watched me all these years. You’re so good at pretending you almost fooled me.  _No more_ , Bones!” Jim bracketed Bones’ hips with his knees, his hands on his neck both threatening and comforting. “You’re selfish to your core, and brutal in your decisions. You calculate a life’s worth before you decide if you should save it.” Jim’s hands tightened. “I fear it and I  _love_  it.”

Bones tried to protest; he was  _dying_  for godssake. The last thing he should hear should not be slander from lips he once desired. He didn’t understand; Jim couldn’t possibly understand.

"I can save you in the way you can’t save yourself. Take the final fall." Bones was choking, blood spluttering and his eyes, half-blind and bugging out. "Bones, be the selfish bastard I know you are. Calculate your worth. Tell me,  _do you want to live?_ " 

He shouldn’t have been able to speak; his lungs were punctured and his throat full of blood. Some will he didn’t know he had opened his mouth, and with his last gasp he said “ _Yes._ ”

Jim grew serene, as if Bones’ answer was the long awaited dawn. His hands circled his neck, but all the life was already gone. There was nothing left to take. Only to give.

He leaned forward, relishing in the slick red mussed in Bones’ hair as he pushed it back to kiss gently at his forehead. Jim tugged his head back by the hair, exposing a clean expanse of white skin. He reached under his own uniform, pulling out the pendant he always wore. It wasn’t a reminder of his family, his friends, the dead he said he would never forget. He slid open the case and pulled out a miniature hypo. It was a reminder that death  _could_  be forgotten and surpassed. In one swift motion, Jim stabbed the hypo into Bones’ neck. He watched as the grey pallor seemed to trickle out of the body beneath him, a flush of life returning.

"Heal fast, my broken Bones. We have a lot to discuss."

 

**Author's Note:**

> I am not 100% where this came from but I guess my brain has written too much fluff and needed a change of pace, haha!
> 
> Kudos and comments are appreciated!


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